Merry Christmas from your Bolliekins!

Hello Mummy,

Well strange things are happening at this house! Brendan just arrived and we have been to the beach, bat also a BIG tree has appeared in the lounge - most peculiar.

Sharon and Elaine keep telling me that you are coming home soon - how wonderful is that!!

I know that Louis will miss me - even though he pretends that he won't.

Hmmm Wellington - perhaps I will have to be a 'prancing girl' on the end of my smart new red leather and chain lead in a city as flash as Wellington?

Anyway, here I am introducing myself to Brendan.

Rolling over

Hey Mummy,

Elaine has been teaching me a new trick - if I roll over she gives me a teeeny tiny piece of cheerio - yum, yum.

Remember my duck?

Well mummy - my yellow duck is still surviving! That Louis thinks he is the boss of it, but I am too quick for him.

I am a wee bit worried about whether you are warm enough in all that snow - I am working on something to help you with the cold - more next time!

love your Bollie xxx

Waiting, ready and willing to skype...

Hello mummy,

I have been putting the skype headset on at 7 every morning, waiting to talk to you.....

Some dogs....

Hello darling Mummy,
Here is a kiss....

We have had a visitor at Dickens Street for a couple of days. A 2 year-old King Charles Spaniel called Buddy. - Boy, please don't think that I am being a snob, but he must have been behind the door when brains were being given out! We went for a walk along the Boulder Bank - a 13km long natural breakwater (not that we were going to walk all the way along it!!) Well, Buddy is a bit fixated on birds, and he took off after some seagulls - I tell you mummy, he is oblivious to the world around him when he sees birds. He ran onto a farm, and...whooops - ran straight over the edge of a 4m deep concrete-lined silage pit! I have never seen Elaine and Sharon SO white. Anyway, no brains, no pain - he got up and trotted back to Elaine! - He didn't move far from her after that, though - amazing.

Elaine has been trying to catch me playing with the silly boy - I am too clever for her - every time she gets the camera out, I stop and pose. You will have to make do with video of Louis playing with Buddy.



Here I am enjoying the beautiful spring sunshine!

Walking on sunday

Hi there Mummy,
Well at last we have had some nice weather in Nelson. On sunday we went for a walk up the Barnicoat Range again, but instead of following the track that gives such beautiful views, we followed a ridge track up the valley to the river. Part of the track had washed away with a HUGE slip (would you believe that Louis -dippy boy- tried to run down the slip - a bit scary as it is still moving....) Here I am reassuring Elaine that I am NOT that silly! When we got to the river, it was too high to cross over at the ford, so we had to walk back along the track. The weather is glorious, but supposed to rain again later this week - ho hum, it'll be good when the rain stops!

Do you know that it is only 143 sleeps until I see you again!

Lots of love,

Bollie Mathematician dog

XXX

ANOTHER bath day.

Hello Mummy,
Some friends of Sharon and Elaine's have just moved up the road to Best Island, so today Elaine took us to visit. Well! Is it paradise or what! You have to drive over a causeway to get to the house, and it is RIGHT ON THE BEACH. There are only about 30 houses on the whole island, and a farm, a golf course and a pine plantation. We went for a walk - HEAVEN - there are rabbits! My nose couldn't believe its luck - I am going to talk to Elaine about going back there in the evening - I BET I could catch my own dinner (NOTE from Elaine - over my dead body!)
I ran and swam and rolled in gorgeous smells, got SOOOO muddy, and had the best time - so did Louis.





Of course, when we got home, Elaine gave us a bath - she just doesn't appreciate the finer things in life!!

Hairy Maclairy and Muffin Maclay....

One of the things I like about living here, is that I can see who is going past (very occasionally it is fun to bark at dogs that are going past).

Every now and again a group of children from the childcare centre along the road come to visit. They are a bit confused though... they keep calling me Hairy Maclairy, and Louis Muffin Maclay.

For those of you who don't know about these stories, they are written by Lynley Dodd, and are about an adventurous wee dog called Hairy Maclary and his friends. Here is a pictue of them.
Hairy Maclairy from Donaldson's Dairy, Bitzer Maloney all skinny and boney, Bottomley Potts all covered in spots, Muffin Maclay like a bundle of hay, Hurculeas Morse as big as a horse and Schnitzel von Krumm with a very low tum.

...ANOTHER river walk....

Hey mummy, when you said I was coming to Nelson, you didn't tell me that there are sooooo many wonderful rivers. Last weekend we went 10 minutes down the road to the Appleby River. There has been LOTS of snow - as you can see in the photo, and the river was quite high because of all the rain.

It is such fun zipping around chasing sticks. - Can you see where Louis finds something DELICIOUS to eat and I steal it? - Too quick for anybody to stop me!!!



I hear that you are going walking without moi! I will have woofs to say about that when I see you next!! In the meantime I am staying fit with the Nelson girls, ready for when you come home in the new year.
Lots of love, Bollie brave-girl.

THE BIG STORM!

Well Mummy, we have just had 3 really really big storms in a week. The first one was the deepest depression thay have seen in 30 years (people died in that one - all in the north island. It was vicious and fast moving, and Nelson wasn't hit too badly. The next one was as big as the Tasman sea, not quite so low, but very slow moving, and caused flooding and wind damage in the North Island, and absolutely decimated Nelson before it headed south and caused flooding all over Canterbury - SH1 is still closed and so is the railway line near Kaikoura.
Anyway, on wednesday it was pretty windy in Nelson, and Elaine got stuck in Christchurch because the planes couldn't fly into Nelson. Sharon got home from work and decided to take us for a quick walk, but when we got to the park, the wind was worse and the trees were making cracking noises, so we went home and battened down the hatches. And just as well we did. We were safe as anything in the wee house, but there was devastation all around us! I couldn't believe it the next day! The big park up the road lost over 100 beautiful old trees. Just a couple of hundred meters up the road 2 houses got smashed by trees, and the railway reserve that we love to walk in just up the road lost lots of trees. The water supply to Nelson got smashed and won't be fixed until tomorrow, so we are having to be careful with water.

Here are some pictures from the Railway reserve which is about 200m from our house.

I hope are enjoying summer, while we survive this terrible winter!

love your Bollie. XXXX

Who said I'm not keen on water!

Sharon and Elaine seemed to be under the impression that I don't like swimming much. You know mummy, I am the only one who swims out after the ball! It is a bit tricky, because I just can't stop my tail from wagging while I am swimming.

And as for that Louis...what do they say about boys? All talk and no trousers! Well as you can see, he likes to think that he is in charge, and makes a big song and dance, but it is me - your little Bollie-Wollie Foodle that bravely provides the action! (On an outgoing tide whats more!) Oh, yes those white things in the distance are snow-covered hills - but as an intrepid explorer, I don't let a small thing like COLD water stop me getting the ball.

With love,

your little girl. XXXX

another wet weekend....

Well I guess that you have to expect a bit of wet weather in winter, Louis and I had played and played (our favourite game is hide and seek under the duvet, and its all a bit exhausting, so here we are recharging our batteries.......

Another Sunday walk

Today we walked up the track to the top of the Barnicoat range. Elaine remembered her camera this time.
The dark range of hills in the distance were covered in snow last weekend, but most of it has been washed off with the heavy rain we had this week. The snow you can see is on the mountains behind. We have had 3 or 4 -2 to -3 degree frosts too. It is quite wintery at times, but the sun is never far away in Nelson.

I hope you are having a nice time Mummy.

love

Bollie beautiful dog (stayed away from the smelly stuff this time!)

Rainy weather can be fun!!

Surrounding every silver lining is a cloud.....

Hello Mummy,
Well we are in the middle of a very cold snap. There was even a little snow on the fringes of Nelson City. The Barnicoat Range behind Stoke had snow down to 200m yesterday. Today we went for a walk up to where the hang-gliders jump off the Barnicoat - wow! the view was amazing. There is a huge amount of snow on the other side of Tasman Bay (I bet they couldn't get over Takaka Hill last night). Sadly, Elaine's camera battery was flat, so no pictures!

So we went up through the pine forest, with lots of possum and rat smells to chase AND THEN... Louis found a dead sheep down a bank in some blackberry bushes. (I think it had been dead for quite a while - the smell was gorgeous.) Elaine and Sharon had to call and call before we went back to them. We were very pleased with ourselves.

Would you believe it - we get home, and Sharon gave us a BATH! Truly, humans are the most peculiar creatures - get covered in 'eau-de-dead-thing' and what do they do - bath us.
I hope you are having a lovely time,

love Bollie-Bush-Dog.

Rambling up the Maitai Valley.

On sunday we went for a wee jaunt up the Maitai valley. It was great....ducks, sticks, places to run and swim...that Louis is a bit dippy - first thing he does is rush into the river. Ah well, what is a girl to do....I had to follow him

You've heard of the rabbit-proof fence....

double click to blow this one bigger

Escape Artist...

As I was working yesterday, the phone rang. It was my neighbour saying that the wee black dog is trotting up and down the street.

"No, its not Bollie" I said, "She is asleep on the....." as I turned around, I realised that she wasn't there.

Almost an hour later, I found her in a neighbour's garden! She had dug her way out under the gate!

We have made a temporary modification to the gate, and will this afternoon permanently fix the problem!!




Oh darn. They're onto it!!

Saturday morning

Well, after a bit of an up and down week....I think I might have been missing mummy on Thursday - couldn't quite put my finger on it, but a bit...well, you know....

ALONG CAME SATURDAY....but truly I don't sleep on their bed - they put me to bed in my wee basket every night Honestly - I do stay there all night Mummy!

Later today we are going for another river walk - this time up the Maitai Valley - I can't wait.

A walk in the park.....

Today we went for a bit of a walk up the Hackett track in the Aniseed Valley. What a great place...my nose couldn't believe its luck! There were smells everywhere....rats, rabbits, possums and heaven knows what else. We walked (well the humans walked, I ran and ran and ran). I swam in the river, rolled in dead things, hid in the bush, IT WAS GREAT. We also took another friend called Zoe - she is a bit of a bossy girl, but I sorted her out. Here we all are having some great fun.

After a week in Nelson....

Its been a bit of an up and down week.....

First Louis got a bit obsessed with my bed - thank goodness he got over it before it broke!
Then...



would you believe that Elaine and Sharon insist that I wear a harness in the car! How demeaning!








But actually, Louis and I are having some fun.....
.....................so life in Nelson might not be too bad.

Neutral Ground can be interesting...

My mummy thought that it might be good to meet Louis on neutral ground,

so we all went to Hanmer Springs........and it snowed!!!










But I think that Mummy might be feeling a bit sad at leaving me....I know that I am not too sure at the moment....

When Bollie met Louis

Bollie's mummy is off to the U.K. until christmas, so Bollie is off to Nelson to stay with Louis and his family. On saturday Bollie met Louis for the first time.....

"Hmmmm, he looks a bit big...."